


Bringing Him to Heal

by monimala



Category: Black Panther (2018), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Gen, Multi, POV Male Character, Past Rape/Non-con, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 09:38:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13808502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monimala/pseuds/monimala
Summary: Takes place shortly after the events ofBlack Panther.The Winter Soldier’s sins can’t be erased as easily as trigger words. Some programming just runs too deep.





	Bringing Him to Heal

He remembers girls in theory. In bits and pieces. Sepia-toned snapshots capturing things that happened to somebody else. Holding Frances Marks’ hand as they screamed their way down the drop of the Cyclone at Coney Island. A pretty pair of French resistance fighters that he and Dum Dum picked up during the war. A redhead in a red room. They trained. They fought. They had sex. His handlers put him back under and when he woke up again he tried to kill her. _You could at least recognize me_ , she said decades later—and now that he has, he has no way of telling her.

He has hazy impressions of soft touches and hard fucks. Of Steve blushing as he brags about some dame he scored with. Of things he did Before and things he did During. Sometimes he wakes up panting, embarrassingly erect. A teenager instead of an ancient relic in a body that refuses to age.

“It’s all right, Sergeant Barnes. Nothing I haven’t seen before,” she assures in that lilting voice, her dark eyes so full of amusement. “Good thing those Border Tribe’s basotho blankets hide so much, yeah?”

She. Her. The only girl he knows now. The princess. The scientist. _Shuri_. “Bucky,” he reminds her. Because Bucky is who he was Before—who he was when it was just him and Steve against the world—and the name keeps him tethered, pushes the Winter Soldier that much farther away.

She moved him from the lab to a hut a few days ago. There were women in red who came with them. The Dora Milaje. Elite warriors. Fearsome to anyone who actually has fear. He doesn’t know a lot anymore, but he’s pretty certain they’d have something to say about Shuri shrugging off what’s under his blanket. And her brother, the king, he wouldn’t be thrilled either. Bucky’s just started coming back to life. He doesn’t particularly want to die.

She’s incredibly smart. Probably the smartest person he’s ever met. But she seems younger than he ever was. “How old are you again?”

“Sixteen. Almost seventeen. How old are _you_?” she counters, as if she doesn’t already know. She has all his records, has studied his body and his brain and healed so much of both.

He has to think about it. He’s not sure what year it is. He’s never sure what year it is. “97?” he guesses.

This sets Shuri off in peals of laughter. “Close enough, old man!”

It’s good to hear her laugh. To give her reason to. He’s only picked up snatches of Xhosa from the doctors and from the kids who run in and out of his bunk—they call him “White Wolf,” which makes him think of the Lone Ranger or John Wayne—but it’s enough for him to understand that things have been bad lately. That she almost lost everything.

None of that shows on her face now. She’s no-nonsense, professional, as she scans his vitals and tests his trigger words. Her Russian accent is terrible but endearing—still miles ahead of his Xhosa—and doesn’t inspire him to do anything but ask: “What would you make me do? If it worked?”

“ _Pfft_. I don’t need you to do anything for me! I can do it all!” she declares with utter confidence. He believes it. Princess Shuri of Wakanda can do anything and everything she sets her beautiful mind to. Except maybe…

Maybe he imagines the slight shift of her gaze to his lap. Maybe he’s still just that twisted inside. But he knows what power makes people do. Whether you’re sixteen or sixty…having control of another person means there are no limits. He forces half the question past the tightness in his throat. “Not even...?”

“I can take care of _that_ myself, too,” she assures immediately, with a tart click of her tongue. Then she falls away from the joke, her eyes going wide with distress as what he really means sinks in. Her hand stills on his arm, just above his stump. “Did they really…? Did they really make you do things like that?”

The horror in her expression, the disgust in her voice, shakes his cynicism, his wariness, to the core. She looks absolutely sick, a gray cast to her brown skin, but also outraged and ready to fight an army on his behalf. She’s half his size. A practical pixie in her cargo pants and a t-shirt with a slogan he doesn’t recognize. And he has no doubt she would go back in time and destroy his handlers if she could.  

His “maybe” changes to something sweeter. Something…pure. Maybe, just maybe, his circle has expanded to three people. Him. Steve. Her. Against the world.

He’d love to tell her “no.” _No, I never had to service anyone sexually. Just kidding!_ Someone like her, so good and generous and strong, shouldn't have to hear the ugliness of his truth. But the Winter Soldier’s sins can’t be erased as easily as trigger words. Some programming just runs too deep. He did everything he was asked. The least he can do is own up to it He bedded women. He bedded men. He seduced and was seduced. Whatever the mission protocol required. Murder. Sex. Murder and then sex. Sex and then murder. He carried out his orders. He fought whatever war they wanted, on whatever field.

He doesn’t have to speak the words aloud. She must see it all over his face. In how he’s tensed up. Because her response comes out in a fierce burst, like a plasma rifle. “I would _never_. _We_ would never. You are safe in Wakanda, Sergeant Barnes. You will _always_ be safe in Wakanda.”

He covers her hand with his, allowing himself to bask in the feel of her cool, callused, fingers against his too-hot and too-tight skin. It might be the first time in years that he’s touched anyone besides Steve without violence behind it. With nothing but trust.  

“Bucky,” he reminds her again. “Call me Bucky.”

“You are _safe_ ,” she reminds him again. “No harm will ever come to you in my care. I’ve got you, okay?”

“Okay,” he echoes, quietly.

Princess Shuri can do anything and everything she sets her beautiful mind to.

She even inspires him to hope.

 

  

-end-


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